


this is how i'd love you

by Padraigen



Series: Happy Steve Bingo 2019 [5]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Oblivious Bucky Barnes, Period Typical Attitudes, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-War, Pre-World War II Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 10:03:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20905850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Padraigen/pseuds/Padraigen
Summary: “I’m a man.”“What?”Bucky stares at him in earnest, a fiery determination lighting up his eyes familiarly. “You said you wanted to know what it was like with… With a man. I’m a man.”—Happy Steve Bingo 2019 prompt square: The 40s.





	this is how i'd love you

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fill for the Happy Steve Bingo 2019 square "The 40s."
> 
> This work is unbeta'd. I apologize for any glaring mistakes.
> 
> Enjoy!

Steve first meets Paul when they move into the building. Paul’s apartment is the one directly below his and Bucky’s. The first thing Steve notices about Paul isn’t that he’s handsome or that he has a nice smile. In fact, Steve can only manage the briefest of polite nods when Paul greets him, too caught up in watching Bucky, watching how the excitement of moving into their own place together completely lights up his face.

It isn’t until later that Steve truly acknowledges the gleam in Paul’s eyes. That he truly understands what the quirk of his lips _means. _And, at once, he goes hot all over, his pasty skin doing nothing to hide the flush.

It only takes one heated second, one knowing look, one instance of allowing himself to _want_.

Steve knows that he shouldn’t. But he does. He really, _really _does.

*

They’re on Steve’s bed.

He hadn’t given much thought to inviting Paul up, thinking that Bucky would be out all night with that girl—_Colleen_ was her name—and he could have the apartment to himself for one night. He could have _this _for one night.

Steve’s stomach is twisting in on itself in a way he hadn’t thought was physically possible, and his breathing is starting to pick up. How inconvenient it would be to have an asthma attack right now.

At any other time, he would despair of his thinly padded mattress, at the way a spring is digging sharply into the back of his knee. But at this moment, he’s mostly just grateful for it. Grateful that it gives him something to focus on, so he can’t panic about everything _else_. About where he is, who he’s with, and what he’s honestly considering doing.

“Are you alright?” Paul asks, his voice low and inexplicably soothing to Steve’s riotous nerves. His eyes are brown and unfamiliar and _kind_ in a way that makes Steve embarrassed by the question.

“I’m fine,” he insists, willing it to be true. Paul’s smile is empathetic, and it’s this—more than anything—that helps him calm down. “Can you… Can you tell me what to do?”

Paul’s smile expands into a grin and he carefully takes Steve’s hands—which are clenched into sweaty fists—and says, “We can go slow. Do whatever feels comfortable. Follow my lead, if you like.”

And Steve can do that. He can follow instructions when he wants to, and right now, he definitely wants to. Paul’s grip on his hands loosen, and his fingers drift up Steve’s arms, so gentle and light that they make Steve shiver. His broad palms end up cradling the back of Steve’s head, his thumbs brushing under Steve’s ears in a way that’s almost ticklish. He leans in slowly, his movements obvious, leaving no room for Steve to misinterpret his intentions.

Steve’s breath hitches, but he’s otherwise mostly prepared for the first brush of soft lips against his own. Paul doesn’t push any further, just nudges at Steve’s lips encouragingly, and Steve dares to press a little closer. His hands unclench themselves from fists and he has enough presence of mind to reach for Paul’s waist and grab on to the hem of his cotton shirt, grounding him a little.

He’s almost surprised by something wet flicking over his lips, so quick he wonders if he imagines it. But then Paul licks at his lips again and he’s coerced into opening his mouth a smidge. Paul captures his bottom lip between his own, and then he _sucks_, and Steve can’t help the startled moan that’s forced from his throat.

Paul does this again, this time with a hint of teeth, and now Steve can feel his cock begin to harden in his trousers. His hips hitch involuntarily, his cock searching for some sort of friction, and Steve’s heart is pounding so strongly now he’s worried the weak organ will falter.

And then—

“Hey, Steve, you wanna—?” Bucky barges into the room then, and, _fuck, _Steve hadn’t even heard the front door open. He wrenches himself away from Paul—too late—and awkwardly tries to cross his legs as if there’s any point in trying to hide.

As if the way Bucky’s wide eyes and gaping mouth aren’t more than enough proof that he’d seen everything. That he _knows._

“Bucky—” Steve tries to find the words, any words, that will make this better. That will convince Bucky he hadn’t really seen what he thought he’d seen, that it _wasn’t what it looked like._ But at the same time, he doesn’t want to lie. He knows there’s nothing he could say that would erase this, anyway.

“I should… go,” Paul stutters, standing up and hunching in on himself. Steve is ashamed for how grateful he is that Bucky’s attention has shifted to him instead, so Steve doesn’t have to deal with the heavy weight of his gaze. “I’ll… see you later, Steven.”

Steve winces and doesn’t reply, doesn’t even have the spine to watch him leave. He’s never taken himself for a coward, so he can’t excuse the way he’s acting now. But he’s also never felt so utterly helpless in regards to his own morals. He has never just _not known_ the right thing to do. He tells himself he’d just wanted to… try. To see what it felt like. To _know_, for sure, so he couldn’t be curious about it anymore. Just one time.

No one else was ever supposed to know. Certainly not Bucky.

Bucky’s gaze returns to him after Paul leaves, his expression unreadable. It’s strange, not being able to tell what he’s thinking just by seeing the way his eyes crinkle or his eyebrow quirks. It makes Steve wish he was limber enough to curl into a literal ball.

“Steve?”

Steve flinches at the sound of Bucky’s voice, but he forces himself to meet his eyes. He sets his mouth in a grim line of determination, not sure what he’s hoping Bucky will say.

“You—”

“It was nothing, Buck.”

“_That_ was _not_ nothing.” Bucky sounds incredulous, his eyes wild for a second before his face smoothes out into that inscrutable expression Steve’s starting to hate.

“You were never meant to see that.” Steve’s heart starts to race again for an altogether different reason than before. Bucky was never supposed to know about Steve’s… _inclinations._ If he never knew, he would never look at him the way he is now. He would never judge him. And Steve would never have to worry that he might have just ruined their entire friendship. Destroyed the only relationship he has left because of something that was never supposed to be anything more than a one-time thing.

He lowers his head in defeat, the beginnings of tears prickling behind his eyes. He blinks rapidly, suddenly angry at himself. “You weren’t supposed to know.”

“That you… with men.” The words are said without inflection.

Steve’s head whips up. “No!” he protests, because Bucky really thinks… thinks that he does this. Has done this before. That this is a _thing_. “I’ve never— this was the first. Time. I haven’t… _done_ anything, Bucky. I just wanted to know, okay? I wanted to know what it was like. With…” He can’t finish.

“You’ve never told me that before.” Steve is surprised by the hurt he hears in these words, by the way Bucky clenches his jaw like he does when he’s trying to hold back what he’s feeling.

It’s like getting socked in the gut, the way he can so clearly see that he’s… _disappointed_ Bucky. Whenever Steve imagined Bucky finding out—a rare occurrence that only happened when he was drunk or pitying himself—he always imagined anger. Disgust. Betrayal, even. But the disappointment evident in Bucky’s voice is so much worse, and it inspires an honesty that he never would have expected even from himself. “I didn’t want you to hate me.”

Bucky makes a noise that sounds an awful lot like a dog’s whimper, and his voice is hoarse when he says, “I could never hate you, Stevie.”

The nickname is what does it. The dam breaks, and the firm hold Steve’s kept on his emotions shatters. The tears come first, and he barks out one sob before clenching his teeth over all the others. His shoulders shake with the effort.

He flinches at the first touch from Bucky, but Bucky doesn’t let that deter him. He sits on Steve’s bed and pulls Steve into his chest, his arms unyielding around him. Steve buries his head under Bucky’s chin, ignoring the way his tears dampen his shirt.

“It’s gonna be okay, Steve. I’ve got you.” Bucky whispers sweetly in his ear until Steve has calmed down to hiccuping only occasionally. They sit there like that for what feels like hours, and Steve is starting to get a crick in his neck, and he’s sure his legs have fallen asleep, but he doesn’t dare move. Doesn’t dare disrupt this impossible moment that Steve had come to fear, although he clearly shouldn’t have. He’s ashamed by his lack of faith in his best friend.

Eventually, Bucky pulls back a bit and says, apropos of nothing, “I’m a man.”

“What?”

Bucky stares at him in earnest, a fiery determination lighting up his eyes familiarly. Steve has always loved when Bucky looks this way, beautiful and undaunted, someone he can take on the entire damned world with. There is no hesitation in this look; no room for doubt.

“You said you wanted to know what it was like with… With a man. I’m a man.”

“Bucky, you can’t… You’re not—”

“Not what, Steve?” Bucky doesn’t wait for an answer. He lowers his hands, as if he’s got something to prove, and unbuttons Steve’s pants with little grace and shaking fingers. Steve feels his belly flop, _want _searing through his veins.

He can’t believe this is happening.

Bucky pulls open the front of Steve’s pants and runs his fingers over the length of Steve’s cock through the cotton of his underwear before he pushes that aside, too. “Bucky—”

Suddenly Bucky’s hand is wrapping around the base of his cock. “_Bucky!_” Steve yelps, but he stops protesting when he sees the look in Bucky’s eyes.

His grip is awkward—Bucky hasn’t done this before, either, not with a man, and yet he’s doing it for _Steve_—but it’s so good Steve’s poor vision whites out for a split second.

Steve is already panting, rock hard, trying to focus on inhaling and exhaling so he won’t asphyxiate, and also so he won’t immediately come.

Bucky’s hand pumps up once, too rough, almost painful, before he seems to get the hang of it. He swipes a thumb over the head of Steve’s cock, and Steve isn’t ready for it, isn’t prepared. His breathing stutters at the way Bucky’s thumb catches some precome, using it to ease the way back down and up again. His pace is slow, too slow, his gaze on Steve’s cock so intense that Steve has to look away, close his eyes.

It doesn’t help, of course. He can still see Bucky. Bucky naked and wet, coming out of the bath. Bucky grinning, laughing, joking with Steve. Bucky angry and protective when Steve provokes a hit. Bucky, Bucky, Bucky, always Bucky. Only ever Bucky.

Steve drops his head to Bucky’s shoulder, panting wetly against the skin at the base of his neck, and shudders at the way Bucky twists his grip, strokes a knuckle under the head. He opens his eyes to catch a glimpse of his cock, red and throbbing, sheathed by Bucky’s fingers. “_Please_,” he whimpers, his forehead digging into Bucky’s collarbone, and on the next upstroke Bucky tightens his grip. Steve trembles, and it only takes a few more strokes before Steve is coming, crying out, “Bucky!”

Bucky strokes him through his orgasm, and Steve’s cock twitches, over-sensitive. Steve stays there, gasping and exhausted and bewildered. And then he notices the bulge in Bucky’s own trousers, his cock straining the fabric. Steve gapes at the sight, almost in awe, before his brain kicks on and he reaches for the seam of Bucky’s pants.

Bucky grabs him before he can do anything, his big hand able to easily envelope Steve’s skinny wrist to push him away.

Steve lifts his head, lips curling in disappointment. “Bucky…?”

“Shh, sweetheart,” Bucky soothes, drawing Steve close again. “It’s not that I don’t want to… Let’s just. Let’s do it like this.” He tugs Steve onto the bed with him, the bed so narrow Bucky has to lay nearly on top of him. “Don’t move.”

And Bucky starts to thrust against his thigh, grunting softly into Steve’s ear, his breath curling over the shell of his ear. Steve pushes back against him, just to hear Bucky groan and lose control, thrusting in earnest. He comes almost silently against Steve’s leg, holding Steve tightly to him.

After, they lay there together panting, Steve’s mind racing. What had they just done? Steve can feel himself getting worked up, can feel the panic closing in, when Bucky lifts his head and kisses him and stops the thoughts in their tracks. Bucky deepens the kiss when it’s clear Steve won’t protest and starts nibbling softly at Steve’s bottom lip.

And, _God_, does Steve like that. He’s about to grab Bucky’s head, try to pull him closer, demand _more_, when he remembers something important and pulls away to ask guiltily, “What about your date?”

“Huh?” Bucky mumbles faintly, staring at Steve’s lips with a frown, like he’s offended that they’re not touching his anymore. “Oh, yeah. Turns out it was more of a group thing. I came back to ask if you wanted to tag along.” He nuzzles into the crook of Steve’s neck, dropping a kiss between collarbone and shoulder.

Steve shudders. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” Steve can feel the way Bucky grins against his skin. “Think I’d rather be doin’ this, though.”

Steve chuckles. “C’mere.” He tugs at Bucky’s hair until Bucky lifts his head, and then they’re kissing some more.

He thinks at some point, idly, that he’d much rather be doing this, too. He doesn’t say anything, though, certain Bucky already knows.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this fic, and have a moment, I would really appreciate knowing your thoughts in the comments! Thank you very much :)
> 
> Come find me on [tumblr](https://padraigendragon.tumblr.com/)!


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